Good writers' Achilles's heels and bad writers' redeeming features

[Mr Endon]

Let's try something different! I want you to think of your one of your favourite writers. Now say something about them that you particularly dislike, or are at odds with, or admit isn't the writer's most outstanding feature.

It's only fair that I cast the first stone. Beckett's my favourite writer. His early work (More Pricks than Kicks, Murphy and Watt), although I do like Murphy and love Watt, strikes me as being very pedantic at times (and pedantic throughout in the case of Kicks).

You can also do it the other way around: pick a writer whose whimsical combinations of words make you positively shudder and say something nice about them.

Me, I remember having hated Elizabeth Bowen's The Heat of the Day with a passion, but I do think the book's underlying allegory provides plenty of food for thought.

Your turn now!

[My2cents]

As everything he wrote seemed like rough first drafts to me, I was always baffled that Faulkner was so highly regarded. I can see now though how obsessing over form can really delusion even the best of writers as Gustave Flaubert was with Bouvard and Pecuchet.

[Chris 73]

George R R Martin. He's capable of some lovely prose but often doesn't bother. Compare his earlier works like Fevre Dreame or his sf short stories to Game of Thrones and you'll see what I mean.

[Des Essientes]

The greatest novelist of the 20th Century was Celine (Louis-Ferdinand Destouches), but he was a racist.

[Desolation]

The greatest novelist of the 20th Century was Celine (Louis-Ferdinand Destouches), but he was a racist.

YES! Absolutely. Journey is one of my all-time favorites, but Celine's Nazism makes his later novels very trying. It's a shame, really.

I'd say that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were hampered by their stringent Christianity, and their endings usually involving everyone finding God and living happily ever after for no reason other than that they found God.

[dfloyd]

usually haven't passed their sophomore year.

[NiMROD]

I really like Thomas Pynchon. His novel V. though uses the word "said" so many times. It's somewhat bizarre. Highly esteemed authors can disregard writing rules all the time, but this particular one (though really more of a guideline or style than a rule) was just aggravating. His later writing doesn't have this problem.

[stlukesguild]

Another greatest writer .... people prone to use superlatives
usually haven't passed their sophomore year.

:iamwithstupid::lol:

[Arrowni]

Borges less appealing quality is that he read almost everything there is to read, you have to interrogate his creation process after so much input.


The greatest novelist of the 20th Century was Celine (Louis-Ferdinand Destouches), but he was a racist.

I don't think his racist make him any less of a writer though.

[TheChilly]

I really like Thomas Pynchon. His novel V. though uses the word "said" so many times. It's somewhat bizarre. Highly esteemed authors can disregard writing rules all the time, but this particular one (though really more of a guideline or style than a rule) was just aggravating. His later writing doesn't have this problem.

Agreed, even though for Pynchon, I think his Achilles' Heel is more towards his immense difficulty (... and I found James Joyce easier to read, not counting "Finnegan's Wake", but "Ulysses" isn't that bad for me) and huge reliance on density/complexity over fleshing out characters, which kinda isn't a problem for me because Pynchon is already a master at turning about anything he touches into a world of his own.

[NiMROD]

Agreed, even though for Pynchon, I think his Achilles' Heel is more towards his immense difficulty (... and I found James Joyce easier to read, not counting "Finnegan's Wake", but "Ulysses" isn't that bad for me) and huge reliance on density/complexity over fleshing out characters, which kinda isn't a problem for me because Pynchon is already a master at turning about anything he touches into a world of his own.

Hah I suppose that really is the true Achilles' Heel for Pynchon isn't it? He can definitely be difficult, and after reading V. I think it's made Gravity's Rainbow much easier to tackle for me. The hardest part I think is that as a reader you're trying very hard to ground everything, and Pynchon is purposely not letting you. He actually has a great quote (in V., the exact place escapes me) about how the generations are one seamless fabric, but we look at generations outside our own with a fondness for their peculiarities. Because this fabric is ruffled and full of folds, and no matter if you stand at an apex or trough of this fabric, the whole picture will inevitably be obscured, and thus never understood.

I think this actually describes his writing pretty well.

[Des Essientes]

YES! Absolutely. Journey is one of my all-time favorites, but Celine's Nazism makes his later novels very trying. It's a shame, really.


Celine wasn't a Nazi, although he went with the Nazis and the Vichy guys when they left France. Celine claimed to be an anarchist and I believe him, but he was really racist in is writing towards almost everyone who wasn't white and French. I really think his later novels are just as good as Journey To The End Of The Night and Death On The Installment Plan. It's almost as if Celine was writing one extremely long novel throughout his life.

[Desolation]

Celine wasn't a Nazi, although he went with the Nazis and the Vichy guys when they left France. Celine claimed to be an anarchist and I believe him, but he was really racist in is writing towards almost everyone who wasn't white and French. I really think his later novels are just as good as Journey To The End Of The Night and Death On The Installment Plan. It's almost as if Celine was writing one extremely long novel throughout his life.

It can hardly be said, though, that his writing spared white Frenchmen. He pretty much raged against EVERYONE...except for cats. White, Black, Hebrew, French, American, German, Christian...he put everyone on the chopping block. The people that he seemed to hate most were the rich, actually.

[Rores28]

I love Cormac's prose but sometimes he uses the suffix -wise too much "slantwise" etc.. and the words imagining and reckoning.

Borges has amazing ideas and formal innovation but his prose (which I've only read in translation) lacks a commensurately impressive aesthetic quality.

Fiztgerald is amazing stylistically but sometimes heavy-handed metaphorically.

David Foster Wallace's giddiness with his own linguistic cleverness is so palpable as to be irritating at times.

Shakespeare may be the only author for whom I can't indentify any deficiencies.

[JCamilo]

Borges's prose lacks aesthetic quality and Shakespeare, the loose canon plot builder has no deficiencies?

Sure, if you would say, Borges dialogues are lacking or his difficulty to product long texts, but what are exactly that he is lacking on aesthetic field except changing spanish language from its baroque style to a fluid and precise prose?

[Rores28]

Borges's prose lacks aesthetic quality and Shakespeare, the loose canon plot builder has no deficiencies?

Sure, if you would say, Borges dialogues are lacking or his difficulty to product long texts, but what are exactly that he is lacking on aesthetic field except changing spanish language from its baroque style to a fluid and precise prose?

What do you mean by "loose canon plot builder"?

Again I can only read Borges in translation, and in translation the aesthetic quality of his prose leaves something to be desired.

[Arrowni]

In spanish Borges has a beautiful prose.

"Antes de Nietzsche la inmortalidad personal era una mera equivocación de las esperanzas, un proyecto confuso"

"Equiparar mujeres a flores es otra eternidad o trivialidad; he aquí algunos ejemplos"

It has an oral quality of pauses and stylistic precision with analogies and personifications which have a very poetic rendition. He does use some weird orders and unusual words, but he probably spoke like that and asking him to degrade the "quality" of his vocabulary to sound less difficult is a weird kind of critic. I'd argue that it's part of what gives him a certain rhythm in each phrase.

[Rores28]

Perhaps I will be able to read Spanish one day.

[JCamilo]

What do you mean by "loose canon plot builder"?

Again I can only read Borges in translation, and in translation the aesthetic quality of his prose leaves something to be desired.

Shakespeare plots are not so well developed, mostly he created a sittuation and then he didnt need to worry about it because his dialogues would carry the play ahead. It is not one of his strengths (but it didnt need to be, there wont be ever a perfect writer or anything near to that, because every form has its limitations and strengths and this leads to the writers showing it as well).

[Rores28]

eh agree to disagree

[TheChilly]

Hah I suppose that really is the true Achilles' Heel for Pynchon isn't it? He can definitely be difficult, and after reading V. I think it's made Gravity's Rainbow much easier to tackle for me. The hardest part I think is that as a reader you're trying very hard to ground everything, and Pynchon is purposely not letting you. He actually has a great quote (in V., the exact place escapes me) about how the generations are one seamless fabric, but we look at generations outside our own with a fondness for their peculiarities. Because this fabric is ruffled and full of folds, and no matter if you stand at an apex or trough of this fabric, the whole picture will inevitably be obscured, and thus never understood.

I think this actually describes his writing pretty well.

To this day... I still don't know if I'll have the balls to tackle "Mason & Dixon"... I'm guessing I'll probably learn more while trying to fight a massive migraine headache for the next few months.

[John Steinbeck]

Good Writers: Almost all of John Steinbeck's books are painfully mundane with some interesting stuff thrown into the mix. He's still a great writer and my favorite.

Kurt Vonnegut seems to be a real try-hard. He tends to soapbox frequently throughout his novels (namely Breakfast of Champions). Additionally, his writing style is very juvenile. I don't have a problem with swearing or colloquial language in narrative, but Vonnegut seems to employ it too much. At the end of the day, he seems to be a much better storyteller than a writer.

A Bad Writer: Chuck Palahniuk's writing style is atrocious. It seems to be exponentially worse than the problems that I listed with Vonnegut's style. Additionally, he doesn't seem to tackle relatively unexplored or unpopular issues, excluding Fight Club to some extent. That said, his characters and plots are very original and they appeal to me personally. That's really the only reason I read his books.

Come to think of it, Palahinuk isn't even that bad of a writer, when compared to others. I think I just tend to underrate him because his fanboys tend to claim that he is some sort of literary god.

[Melysnl]

Ayn Rand doesn't trust the readers enough to get the message.




As everything he wrote seemed like rough first drafts to me, I was always baffled that Faulkner was so highly regarded. I can see now though how obsessing over form can really delusion even the best of writers as Gustave Flaubert was with Bouvard and Pecuchet.

I think this is the reason why I don't like Faulkner. Before I could never exactly explain why. His writing is overdone. It comes across like someone who's trying too hard. Maybe better editing would've helped? His popularity baffles me too.

[NiMROD]

To this day... I still don't know if I'll have the balls to tackle "Mason & Dixon"... I'm guessing I'll probably learn more while trying to fight a massive migraine headache for the next few months.

Ha you and me both. Still taking on Gravity's Rainbow, it takes some careful reading. I tend to drift, not from boredom but Pynchon digresses so much that I start digressing in my head from any idea that interests me. Mason and Dixon IS mocking me from the shelf though.

[TheChilly]

Ha you and me both. Still taking on Gravity's Rainbow, it takes some careful reading. I tend to drift, not from boredom but Pynchon digresses so much that I start digressing in my head from any idea that interests me. Mason and Dixon IS mocking me from the shelf though.

I honestly had more fun with Gravity than I did with "Against the Day", to be honest. Just because the former did a huge number on my mind throughout, and still gave me a reason to keep reading. AtD didn't feel as prophetic, but two out of the novel's various clusters still kept me reading.

Which is why I now love airships.

[ennison]

"... For no other reason than they found God" Re-reading this old thread, I found that comment unintentionally funny.